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Fund-Raising Adds to a Democratic Advantage

Senate Democrats have raised twice as much money this year as have their Republican counterparts, adding more difficulty to the electoral equation for Republicans next year.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee reported raising $4.6 million in April, bringing its total for the year to $18.3 million, compared with the Republican totals of $2.1 million for the same month and $9.1 million for the year. Democrats also have more cash in the bank.

Democrats have fewer seats to defend. Twenty-one seats now held by Republicans will be contested next year, compared with 12 held by Democrats. That makes the money imbalance more troublesome if the trend continues. Republicans say they will have the cash they need.

Don’t expect anything to change, it is the same money buying the same sorts of candidates in the party that happens to be less out of favor with the public at the moment. It’s a duopoly entirely directed through money.

A fair amount of the money does come from the same sources, and goes to both parties. Business and interest groups both realize that government can help as well as do harm. They are covering their bets. They want to be sure that whoever wins, they will have access and even a seat at the table.
But a caveat on the assertion nothing ever changes. Truman was not Dewey. Eisenhower was not Stevenson. Nixon was not LBJ. Carter was not Reagon. Now they may not have been different enough for some. But they were hardly the same. And the differences meant there were different winners and losers, different policies, different turns in the pages of history.

We’re getting a good cop – bad cop routine from the same money people, who allow us to vote either “government could work, maybe”, or “government can never work”, while making sure that all who run on the “government could work, maybe” platform come from the right side of the political spectrum.

Meanwhile, democracy vanishes from a corporate world rapidly being taken private, in a form of neo-fuedalism.

Maybe the reason the Dems are raising so much more money is that people relate more to them and are getting sick and tired of what Republicans have become: Evangelical fundamentalists who say government should be small yet want to empower it with more abilities in intrude into people’s lives.

Let’s all think about this and put personal politics aside. If our founding fathers were around today, which party do you think they would identify with more? Would they be more concerned about abortion and the divorce rate or about education and healthcare? In fact let’s make it more interesting. If Jesus were around do you think he’d be a Republican or a Democrat. Be honest and leave your own personal preferences out of it. Who do you honestly think they would support. I’ll come back and give my answer later after you have all responded.

Unfortunately, this advantage to the Dems this year just reflects the fact that they control both houses of Congress, and should control the White House and even deeper control of Congress after the next election…

The money flows where the power goes…and I’m not sure our exalted Dem leaders are going to be even better when they control the levers of power.

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